The Welsh are poised to vote for further devolution. But it is hard to see why

IT'S not easy, on a cold day in Cardiff, to find people who know about the referendum on March 3rd, and even harder to find anyone who cares about it. But the vote, on whether more powers should be transferred to the Welsh Assembly, is a constitutional milestone, not only in Wales's own search for political identity but also in Britain's broader experiment with regional autonomy. The campaign is hotting up just as bad news casts doubt on just what devolution has done for Wales, once a proud, prosperous place but now a struggling one.

Take law and order. A Home Office crime-mapping venture, launched on February 1st, showed four Welsh streets among the most violent ten in England and Wales. A few days before, 26 hard-drug dealers were sentenced in Swansea.

Then there is education. On January 25th Estyn, the Welsh schools inspectorate, said that almost a third of schools were deficient, and that two-fifths of pupils entered secondary school with delayed reading skills. A string of employment setbacks have also made the news. German-owned Bosch, a car-parts maker, is closing its plant in Miskin and moving production to Hungary. Other factories are shutting too.

Against this depressing background, support for devolution has been solidifying (see chart). In 1979 the Welsh rejected self-government almost four–to-one. In 1997 they accepted a limited version of it by the narrowest of margins (the Welsh Assembly has less power than Northern Ireland's or Scotland's Parliament). Polls now indicate that the proposal to give the assembly more powers will whistle through on March 3rd, if on a low turnout.

Why? Nick Bourne, the leader of the Welsh Conservative Party, opposed devolution in 1997 but now supports it: “I disagree with a lot of Assembly decisions, but the system is working well. It meets the legitimate needs and aspirations of a nation, and Wales is a nation.” Some say devolution has given them greater access to decision-makers. Others praise the proliferation of powerful women, the push for Welsh-language education and the freedom to solve Welsh problems in a Welsh (essentially, left-of-centre) way.

Yet Kevin Morgan, of Cardiff University, who led the Yes campaign in 1997, says he has been disappointed by the poor economic dividend that devolution has brought (though he intends to vote Yes again). Not only does Wales remain the poorest region of Britain, with output per head less than half of London's: the gap with the rest of the country has increased.

Recent employment patterns also give cause for concern. As manufacturers have departed for places with cheaper labour, the public sector has mostly taken up the slack. Last year it employed 25.7% of Wales's workforce (a smaller share than in Northern Ireland, but bigger than anywhere else in Britain). Unemployment is nonetheless 8.4%, compared with a national average of 7.9%—and public-sector budget cuts have yet to be fully felt.

Should devolution have done better? Labour has ruled since the devolved government was set up in 1999, alone or in coalition (since 2009 with Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party). A decade is not long to reverse the effects of de-industrialisation. Ieuan Wyn Jones, deputy first minister and Plaid Cymru's leader, says local politicians “don't have the macroeconomic levers. We don't have taxation powers.”

But there are other measures. Many business types say the abolition in 2006 of the Welsh Development Agency, the bearer of Wales's brand to the world outside, was misguided. Wales has only one FTSE-100 company: Admiral, an insurance firm. Its business start-up rate, falling since 2004, is among Britain's lowest.

On education there is even more cause for recrimination. In 2001 the devolved government ditched school league tables; it has also replaced some standardised tests with teacher assessments, making robust comparison of schools impossible. Such policies, and the relaxing of standards that accompanied them, took almost two points a year off GCSE grades per student, according to researchers at Bristol University. Poor pupils suffered most.

All four main political parties now support more devolution. Carwyn Jones, the Labour first minister, wants to speed up law-making, which he says is the slowest in Britain. For Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, the important thing is to make the Welsh government more accountable. “Under the current system it can hide behind its lack of authority,” she says, “blaming Westminster for all the problems”. Roger Scully, of Aberystwyth University, thinks a Yes vote could also change how Wales is seen in London, forcing politicians there to take it more seriously when, for example, the vexed question of renegotiating the formula that determines Wales's block grant comes up.

The case for voting No is rarely heard. But Rachel Banner of True Wales, a pressure group, says devolution is failing on the economy and failing to disperse power to the people. Centralised authority has simply moved down the motorway from London to Cardiff, she says: “It's as hard for politicians to turn down more power as it is for bankers to turn down bonuses.”

For all the economic gloom and stultefying political consensus, there are bright spots. Thomas, a 17-year-old in Merthyr Tydfil, doesn't need Iain Duncan Smith, Britain's work and pensions secretary, to tell him to get on a bus to look for work; he just hopes he'll be able to find some in Wales. A Welsh-speaking small businessman in Cardiff thinks the Assembly is only a talking shop, but says his business is looking up. And the handsome National Library, high above Aberystwyth's bay, a treasure-trove of Welsh history, is full of families on a lovely weekend morning.